The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to the management of data connectivity at a user equipment (UE) operating within a wireless communications system. Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of access points, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple UEs. Different access points may in some cases be associated with different access networks, including Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) access networks or Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) access networks. In some cases, it may be desirable to limit a UE's data connectivity to one or more of the WLAN access networks to comply with a carrier policy. However, such carrier policies may at times conflict with one or more policies at the UE which may favor WWAN for certain types of communications. For example, a carrier policy may favor the offloading of packet data network (PDN) connections from a WWAN access network to a WLAN access network when the UE is within range of the WLAN access network. But the UE may also enforce a competing policy which specifies WWAN as a default provider for access to one or more PDNs or PDN types. Therefore, there is a need to determine the behavior of a UE when the PDN connections of the UE have been offloaded to WLAN while avoiding conflicts between competing carrier and UE WWAN policies.